Matt: So one thing that I could talk about this week is the emotional
element to…like the that feeling of overwhelm and how people with ADHD
can take it so freaking personally.
Uh, I can actually fit this into D&D as well.
Alison: I think you and I might be on the same page about what we
both wanted to speak about today.
I feel like I came in low energy and down, which made me not want to record a podcast
today because of course you only want to be happy and peppy and in a good mood.
But isn't that the spirit in which we've started this whole
thing is like the raw, real side?
And it's not all happy, peppy, butterflies.
Matt: We don't want it all peppy or happy and all that stuff.
We don't want it all of that.
Alison: You're going to get slightly grumpy, Alison and Matt today.
So let's party.
Matt: Yeah, let's party.
Alison: Grumpily.
Matt: Yeah, so.
this week has been.
With ADHD, I have discovered that things can be upsetting and I'm
not even truly aware of them.
I'm certainly aware of them and give them the credit, but sometimes
they affect, everything that I do more than I'm even aware of.
For example, I certainly have a lot on my plate right now.
I have a lot of things.
I've got a theater contingency that wants captions built, I've
got to train a captioner, cause I, I want to move away from some of
that work just for my own sanity.
And.
So like wrangling people.
I feel like I'm wrangling people a lot.
And then, day-to-day work.
Client work.
and then there's fun work of course, Dungeons & Dragons.
It is.
It's all important and good, but if there's any kind of wrench thrown in
there, then I don't just feel overwhelmed.
I feel, I feel completely shut down.
And that's, I think that's a part of it and it, and the part that really
always surprises me is the emotional reaction to things and how like I think
there are some people in the world that just send emails with the subject
line of "please read and respond".
That's just what people do.
They've learned that's what you have to do sometimes.
But I take it so personally.
And I think also it applies to, everything that I touch, everything I
do, but also dungeon mastering, right?
Like I suddenly become insecure, not just in that realm that the issue
is happening, but in every realm.
Everything that I do I'm like, oh, because I, I think over being
overwhelmed for me, for you in some ways it is the status quo, right?
There's never boredom.
There's always something to be working on.
There's always something to fill your brains with.
And that's okay, in some ways, if you are instigating it, if
you're letting your brain do that.
You're also trying to just live a life and you're feeling that way.
It's a lot coming down on you.
And so then we also have the additional stress of this trip that
I planned to a funeral service.
And I wanted to go for the right reasons, just like any funeral, you
can't just be there for the person, Funerals are about the other person.
They're not about the person who's lost someone.
That I know from experience.
It's not about the death of my friend's mother, my friend who I would go for.
It gets everybody else's one chance to really mourn in a lot of ways, publicly.
So it's, it's not a fun thing to go to, no matter what the situation.
But.
I was so used to in the pandemic.
I was thinking about this.
I was talking to my friend, Joe, about this, how.
For so many people, when the pandemic hit, and the crisis happened and world started
changing and it's fear and everything.
Everybody has stress.
But I had so many positive things.
Because I, because of my disability, I didn't really have the perspective
that I needed to understand that I was truly grinding myself into oblivion.
I had no clue.
I just thought that's what I had to do.
I had to juggle three entire businesses.
And the joy and the relief that I felt when I couldn't, was palpable.
I was in my hammock.
Just breathing and breathing and breathing.
It was so amazing.
Alison: I ask myself if not a daily, at least a weekly
basis, if I am a garbage human.
Be cause sometimes I long for the simplicity of April 2020.
And we can tie that back to both of our ADHD, because I think,
probably me more so than you.
I am consistently and constantly hampered by analysis paralysis.
Matt: Yes.
Alison: And in those early days, there were no choices to be made
because you couldn't make any choices.
You just got up and did the best that you could.
And we were all being really kind with ourselves and with each other.
And I remember having conversations with friends about parts of me didn't want it
to go, air quotes here, back to normal.
Because normal wasn't functional and functioning for so many of us.
And that was back in like the early days where we really thought this
was like a six week problem, first of all, But I really wanted all of
us to burst out on the other side with this newfound self-respect.
Respect for other people's boundaries and need for time and all of those things.
And knowing that we were all just going to go right back in to the
way it was the second we could.
And what's been interesting is I feel like you and I haven't.
But the rest of the world and a lot of other people did.
And then, so then that makes us, like that self-consciousness, that we're
feeling stand out even more because it's in such stark opposition to the rest of
the world who's like, all right back to like just filling every moment of every
day with sometimes meaningless activities.
Like some of the stuff I was doing before, just didn't matter.
Matt: Right.
Alison: Yeah, so that's my daily, like, Existential crisis of, I don't
want the world to be in a pandemic.
I don't want businesses to suffer financially.
I don't want people to suffer in any shape.
But I miss the simplicity of just sitting in my living room by myself,
with my cats and not having to worry about saying no or making a decision.
That is when I am at my best, when I don't have to do either of those things.
Matt: And I think that's, I think that is something that
is real for people with ADHD.
It's very real.
I know it's real for a lot of people, but I think that you're
speaking to it better than I was.
In that, there's such an emotional element to it.
Other people are just like, yeah.
Okay.
So I'm either going to, or I'm not.
Like my brother doesn't seem to have a similar problem.
He either goes out or he doesn't go out.
He's always been able to say no better than me.
He's always had less.
And my wife less, less bleeps given.
Just in general, does not have that, that stress of...
Yeah.
Alison: I have, I have a theory.
And this theory, literally just hit my head as you talked about, Evan and Lindsay
who are known introverts, they were introverts before the pandemic, they will
be introverts for the rest of their lives.
What if this has nothing to do with our ADHD and everything to do with
the fact that you and I are both recovering, perceived extroverts.
We have always been labeled extroverts because that's what
people know of us, because that's the mask that we wear in public.
We're talkative.
We like people.
Like all of these things that don't necessarily make us extroverts,
but people perceive us to be such.
But that's also why, like the introverts never had the trouble saying no to the
things that they truly didn't want to do.
Those who are at least self-aware enough to draw those
boundaries and stick to them.
But you and I, who have ADHD, but also have shifted in, I don't
necessarily, I'm not trying to tell anybody that I am an introvert.
I'm not.
I think of anything at this point.
I have an ambivert.
I don't know how you, you self identify there.
Is that another symptom or is that something else?
Completely different?
Matt: I think it could be a symptom in.
In our endless desire to find stimulation.
And a lot of times, and we have learned that stimulation can come from
experiences, human, other human beings.
But I agree with you.
We've, we have definitely learned a lot about that.
So I, I think, yes, I think you and I have learned that we are ambiverts for sure.
I think that the big shock for us was, when that was taken
away, we did not crumble at all.
In fact we thrived, in some
Alison: In fact we thrived.
Yup.
Matt: So what does that mean?
And.
I don't really have the answer.
It's just a fascinating process.
I still don't know what to do.
I think this is a process still.
It's still I'm going through it.
I don't.
I don't have the answers yet.
I mean, I'm operating on a level where for sure I'm doing things
I think are the right things.
The thing that you and I have to learn now is.
is that the best use of our time?
Is that the best way to be supportive as a friend?
Is that helpful at all?
In those situations, I'm still reacting as if it was 2019.
Alison: I think weddings and funerals are very similar in that regard where there
is a lot of shoulding around, should I go?
I remember once a, an upcoming wedding was really stressing me out financially,
emotionally, And one of my friends who was married, sat me down and was
like, I'm going to tell you something..
The bride, the groom.
We don't really know who's there or what's going on that day.
It's all such a blur.
We're not going to look back on that and single you out.
But for the most part, like if you're going to one of these
events, you're going for yourself.
You're going for your ego.
You perceive that other person needs you there.
Potentially more than they need you there.
And that's hard.
Matt: It's very hard.
Alison: And even with, even with less large events, just like day-to-day
stuff, is unlearning the, like, if I don't go, they don't care.
My friends, they'll say like, oh, Alison come, we'd love to see you.
And if I'm not there and if I repeatedly never show up,
there might be a conversation.
But if I miss dinner, like the world keeps turning.
Matt: Yeah.
Alison: It is okay.
So yeah, giving myself that freedom.
And it's funny because I've been thinking about this a lot.
Within the context of D&D.
Matt: Yeah.
Alison: I think about how much I have prioritized D&D,
especially in the last year.
It was easy to prioritize it in 2020.
we literally had nothing else going
Matt: Right.
Alison: But, now.
I definitely play three days a week that I are, as far as I'm
concerned, fairly locked in.
I'm about to add another as a dungeon master myself.
And I've realized more than any other point in my life before, what
a priority those days have been.
I used to let things get moved around, I have a standing, Lunch or dinner
or whatever date with this person, people could shove that around.
And now my friends ask me to do something on Thursday and it's a hard and fast no,
like I don't even have to think about it.
What if we could just do that without something on the other
side, just prioritize that day and time for whatever we need it for.
Wouldn't that be great?
Matt: Don't you feel that, that time, the reason that it is becoming a hard and fast
no is that time is quality time, for you.
That's the lesson that I'm just going to have to learn.
I'm going to have to really take a deep breath and accept and understand.
It's just about quality.
And I think when we hit on this thing that, like you said, in 2020
was all we could do, like, yay.
Let's just try this out.
but when we realized, wow, this is truly meaningful and it is
punching all these buttons in, in our life that we are missing.
How many parties have you gone to?
That you've just have no emotional connection.
It's all small talk and you know, it's going to be small talk and you
get there and it is small talk and then suddenly here's this thing where
people that I've never met in person are having these emotional experiences.
Alison: Yep.
Uh, just a few days ago, the first character that I ever built as D&D
player died and at the end of the game.
And so it was the first character death that I've been through.
And my first character's death.
Matt: Yeah.
Alison: And it was really funny because in the moment I was like, I'm fine.
This is fine.
We had, it was a little mini campaign that the four of us had done to
say goodbye to these characters.
That was the whole, like motivation was to close the books on that particular story
that we started telling in March of 2020.
And to give them the, you know, official goodbye that we felt they deserved.
So there was this part of me that was braced.
I knew we were going against a Big Bad, as an adventurer.
Anything could happen.
I had felt that morning when I woke up that my character was going to die.
I just felt like it was her time.
And it was very funny, cause like, when it happened, it was
just like, Okay, this is fine.
And in the immediate aftermath, Fitz started texting me.
Like as soon as we all disconnected.
Are you okay?
Like, what do you need?
know, like very much like, and then I woke up at three o'clock in the morning
and started crying, like having all of these very real, very visceral memories of
Lavinia, that's the character, thinking, about everything I could have done
differently would have done differently, would not have done differently at all.
I think here's the part that lets you know, that I'm still
at least a little bit extrovert.
Part of my pain was knowing I couldn't share this with anybody
else because anybody who doesn't know would write it off as silly.
If I said to any of my friends who don't play D&D who roll their eyes when I say
I'm playing D&D my character died and I'm really, I feel like I've lost a friend.
I feel like somebody close to me has died.
It would, they would make fun of me and not because they're bad people.
I would've made fun of me before 2020, 2019, would have made fun of that.
But it has sat on me all week long, like I have gotten sad and teared up
thinking about the fact that my Dungeons and Dragons character died this weekend.
And it's wild.
I don't believe it.
Matt: If I will challenge I'll challenge those people who
would ever say anything to you.
With this.
The reason that you are sad.
The reason that you have the capacity for sadness.
Is because you are a human being and that you care and that you
have experienced this before.
You have experienced death before.
You have experienced loss.
That loss, that real life experience has allowed you to play a game
that triggered the same emotions.
And that's just.
That's just beautiful to me.
I don't care what people think.
I think that's beautiful.
I know you can get it while acting.
Uh, I have done that many times.
do playing music.
I get that.
It's all the same.
There is no difference in my mind.
But it's, it's such a safe and wonderful place because you are surrounded
by friends and it's happening.
And then,
your sadness is, visceral and real and justified.
And also pretty great because there isn't a real human being
at the end that has died.
And I don't know.
I don't know.
I just.
I'm with you.
Alison: I well, and my challenge and maybe that's head trash.
Maybe if I had said to any of my friends, I'm really sad because my
character Lavinia died this weekend.
maybe they would have, I do have friends who, while they don't get D&D I have a
friend who checks on me cause I play a pretty gnarly game on Thursday nights.
She checks on me every Friday morning.
how are you doing?
How was last night?
You know?
And like, That's really sweet and supportive, and I love that.
And I think that's the type of friend that you're like, The past
couple of years have taught me a lot about, quality over quantity.
And I want to be the type of friend that is just on a rampage of happiness.
No matter what.
Whatever is happening in your life.
I want you to know that I'm the type of friend that is just going
to cheer the hell out of you and not look at it in terms of me.
And like, I have a friend who when somebody wants to celebrate anything
she will counter with "don't they know how that will make me feel?"
That's not friendship.
Just rampage of happiness.
That's what we need to be on.
Not all the time, but like for your friends, like just support them.
Unrelentingly, but anyways, I digress.
So I didn't give my friends that chance to be there for me, but, When
you know, a character dies, somebody that you've formed an emotional
attachment to, and in this case, that's exactly what's happened only.
This was a character I made.
This is something I created it.
it's a thin veil.
I will just go ahead and say this, but it's a thin veil between what, who we
create and who we are, there's some.
Something, there's a part of you inside every one of your characters
or a part of you that you're dying to get out and explore,
Matt: I think one thing that's tough for people to understand
is, or accept is that you can play this game without emotion You
don't have to get deep with it.
You could go into a dungeon, roll, some dice, kill some monsters, get
some treasure and have a great time.
I am sure.
That's not what it's about for us.
But you're a hundred percent correct.
A part of you did die last weekend.
Part of you died, which is so intense when you think about it, it's so intense.
Alison: And then there's the performative aspect of it, of me going did I do OK?
Did I do it right.
Was I eloquent enough in my postscript.
Did I handle it okay?
but that's why it's fun because it's just this never ending
choose your own adventure.
You know, but in the game I had to make a split second decision.
Did I make the right one?
Don't know.
Matt: I think that what we have to do is we have to come to a
place where we are like, okay, so These things are meaningful.
And.
You can rate meaningfulness, but I think that's another stressor in my
life is that I find that I really just want to get great at playing this game.
I want to be a great dungeon master.
I want to be a child again, and not know anything about
it and put in my 10,000 hours.
And I haven't felt like that in a long time about anything.
Not, music, theater, any of these things.
And so going back to the sadness too, is like, when these other things come
up and I feel like I'm distracted.
And that's, the thing that is suffering now.
No, I've got to get rid of it.
I've got to get rid of it.
It doesn't feel as important.
Alison: One thing that you.
Have touted as far as ADHD goes for years is how it's misnamed.
Matt: Yeah.
Alison: That it's not really about having an attention deficit.
But rather what you do with your attention and where it goes And I'll be
honest, I think until D&D I don't know if I ever fully understood you there,
cause I have a different kind of ADHD.
And with the compulsion does come that more like, Ooh, shiny, look over there.
Squirrel.
What's going on.
But with something like Dungeons and Dragons, I understand.
So perfectly that point you've been trying to make to me for years when, I have
gotten into this groove where the rest of the world, just blacks out and fades away.
And I am on this.
Just more than doubled down.
One hundreded down on.
On my attention to this one, thing.
Matt: Yeah.
Alison: And that's something new for me.
Matt: It's new and wonderful.
It's funny because I'm seeing this coach.
I have a coach.
And.
When I do something correct.
She cheers.
Yay.
I wonder how many people in your life that when I say.
Yeah, I need to quit this.
yay.
With ADHD, you're trying to please.
You're trying to make everybody happy.
You want to be happy, but, we tend to overextend instead.
We'll just give and give and give and then we'll be exhausted.
part of the stimulus.
no, no, no, no, no.
That's the wrong thing.
I need to take the things that are crazy making.
And jettison them.
So that I have the brain space for things that I'm so ready to pick up.
If you gave me two hours now, instead of working on blank.
To work on D&D.
I would take it just, I would have no problem finding
somebody to do not one problem.
And those two hours would go, boom, just like that.
Alison: I when I was talking a minute ago about the thin veil between
us and the characters we create.
One of my newest character creations is a Druid named Sora.
And I think I created Sora with the ideals of what I want to be very subconsciously.
I did not sit down and really make any decisions about Sora.
I picked out her race or class, her voice, and like we had to come into this campaign
with what are called prophecy goals.
So what's our motivation kind of a thing and that's it.
I cooked up nothing else and have just uncovered her on the journey,
Everything I do, as Sora I realize is that she's not worried about the past
or the future, because she knows that it's going to happen when it happens.
And I want to be more like that.
Cause I get fixated on what I should have said or what I'm going to say
instead of just living in this moment.
Um, but one of the things I've been thinking about relative to this
is, like knowing when it's time to say goodbye to things, knowing
when it's okay to let something go, let something fall off your plate.
Cause I think we tend to grip so tightly to the shoulds our life.
And so one thing that's come off my plate very soon.
I've been, a youth group advisor with my church for 10 years.
Now, 10 years is a really long time.
For anybody, but especially somebody with ADHD to commit to.
Lovingly willingly, happily, you know, they've been 10 great years and
I have, I have really been blessed with a lot of great people in my
life because of the experience, but, My crew is, they are called.
They are graduating in a month and I am done and I am walking away from the
program for the foreseeable future.
And I could not be more excited about that.
And I wonder if If this is a post 2020 Alison now.
Like, having boundaries.
Embracing them.
And, also respecting the natural order of things.
Everything has a beginning and an end, and this is something
that has come to its end.
It's lived its life in my soul.
It served its purpose.
And now I'm going to say, thank you for the memories and I'm
going to walk away for now.
I can't foresee the future.
I don't know what will happen next, but I know that it's a very firm boundary of.
I'm going to reclaim my Sunday nights for me.
And people are what are you going to do with the time?
And I'm like, I don't know.
And that's the beautiful thing.
I don't have to plan every second of every day and have an
itinerary running constantly.
I think I learned that from my character to, let everything have its season.
And this is a really good season in a lot of ways.
And, we'll see what happens next.
Matt: I love that.
Do you have any regrets in the last.
Alison: In life?
Matt: no.
with like you were saying earlier that, when.
When Lav died, you, there were like, oh gosh, should I have done this should I
Does Alison have any similar things about.
I'm fishing for.
I hope not.
You know what I mean?
You know, because I know that when we first started playing with you had.
A certain set of friends.
And we've been very proud in some ways that you've you know,
distance yourself, healthily.
Not permanently, maybe not.
for whatever reason that you are.
Taking care of yourself in that way and finding better friends, deeper friends.
I have too.
I actually have no regrets.
Alison: I don't either.
That's why I was kind of fishing back of like specific to one thing or in general,
because in both cases, the answer is no.
And again, that's what gets me back into, I'm a garbage person for wanting
it to go back to the sweet simplicity of 2020, but like, I don't have any
regrets for the past couple of years.
I love where the path has led.
Because I shut up and stop trying to dictate the path
and just said, okay, fine.
Like I'm out of the control phase.
And, in a lot of ways, now we can really get into it as you and I sit on the
precipice of some pretty big birthdays.
You look back and you think, have I done enough?
did I, have I gotten where I wanted to be in.
No part of my life looks like I thought it would be.
If you'd asked me when I was 15 or 20, what I thought I'd be up to as a 40
year old and in a lot of ways, it would seem that I should be disappointed.
I did not have kids.
I am not married.
I'm not a millionaire.
I do not.
have a really impressive title or, but What has happened
is actually batcrap crazy.
if you look at what has happened in my life, especially in the last five years.
What?!
Like I would love to go, just try and explain to 19 year old me what's
going on in 39 year old me's life.
I couldn't, she wouldn't believe me.
So no.
Absolutely no regrets.
Could I do things better, always.
That will always be like, we're always going to be
searching for a better way, but.
that doesn't mean I regret it.
Matt: I do want us to hold on to that.
I want us to hold on to the, the pandemic level us.
Where that was handed to us on a silver platter.
And I'll just leave with this too.
It's just circumstantial, right?
Like it's just, it's going to be a challenge for every person.
Who they were before.
My, my actor friend who I did not really know two years ago.
He took all the energy that he had that was on stage because he was a full-time
actor and that's all he ever did.
And he put it into cooking and doing this stuff, but he did not have a good time.
We became friends and that was a good time.
But his career was decimated.
He was in dire straights and, he had the energy to do what he did best.
He is an extrovert.
He is someone who gets energized by that.
And, I'm also grateful to him for drawing me out.
I was super lucky that he did.
And now the world's opening up and he's going right back to where
he was, which is also beautiful, but things have changed, right?
Like I think he also, as an extrovert,
Has learned these lessons.
Like I think he also didn't expect.
to make a friend in us.
Even though his world is going back to a lot of stuff that he really wants.
And then when he really missed, I think he's going to carry that as well.
I think we're all going to carry some stuff.
So I hope that all of that is going to stick.
I think you and I can help each other make it stick.
Alison: Make it work.
Matt: Yeah, I
Alison: That's why I never want to be too cavalier when I talk about my
experiences over the past two years.
There are people who are not with us anymore because of it.
So I don't ever want to come off, and in a way that, that disrespects those journeys.
But let's remember.
And let's not take for granted.
Let's remember what it was like to not get to go perform or, watch a
theatrical performance for many months and how much that hurt all of us, let's
not forget the thrill of being in a space together and things like that.
Matt: Let's be like
Sora.
Let's just be
Alison: Sora
Let's be likeSora.
you know, My only regret is that we didn't start this podcast sooner.
And that I didn't start playing D&D sooner.
So now we just have to fill that time back in.
Matt: No worries there.
Thank you for podcasting with me.
What do you have to do tonight?
Alison: I'm going to go hang out with our friend Wardie!
Matt: Oh, that's right.
That's right.
Alison: How many times do we think Ward is going to say, "ssshhhhh" to me.
Let the D20 tell.
Natural 20.
Matt: About right.
Alison: I'm not even kidding.
Matt: That's about right.
Alison: I think we have to add on that note.
Matt: All right.
Well until next time, Alison.
Alison: Until next time, Mattie
Thanks for this
Love you too.